The RyDov Cup, where the Tour began all those years ago, has staked its claim as both the marquee event of the year and also the final event of the year.

It is revered by all who have played in it, and each year brings a new story line, greater intrigued and fantastic competition and camaraderie.

The 2024 edition is no different, yet in many ways it is, it is the 10th match played and with that comes a level of expectation never really felt before. The Tour have also marked this occasion by diverging from the traditional selection method and have created a team of Founding players to face off against a team of newcomers and have put two players that epitomize the Tour entirely, Andy Love and Paul Gowens, in charge of them.

We’ve heard the team announcement, we’ve witnessed the verbal sparring of the Captains, now we’ve unleashed EuroDov Reporter on 9 years’ worth of RyDov Cup records and thousands of sheets of data from Tour events to give us a blow by blow prediction from each match so sit back, enjoy and get ready to argue your case against EuroDov Reporter.

Match 6 in the morning singles features Barry Cunningham v Andy McGregor

This is a replay of the 2022 RyDov Cup singles and it’s on the same course. That time it was a tightly fought affair with Cunningham coming out on top 1Up.

Will history repeat itself?

Well in 5 appearances Cunningham has an impressive 4-point haul compared to McGregor who in 3 appearances has only manage to pull in half a point, it would appear the writing is on the wall.

However, McGregor has rarely had the handicap numerical advantage in his matchups and when he did, against Cunningham in ’22, he very nearly won it.

This is going to be a tight match again, there is no doubt of that, could Cunningham’s recent hand injury and his absence from regular Tour play result in some cobwebs out there?

All in all, I am going to call this one, too close to call, and think we have our first halved match of the tournament.

Team Love 3.5 – 2.5 Team Gowens